David Warlick raised an interesting question this week in his blog regarding ethics and contemporary literacy. Many people, including teachers, administrators, and parents, believe teachers should incorporate an ethics lesson here and there to remind students of appropriate behavior in the cyber world. Some would quickly argue that ethics is the prerogative of philosophy, but I would contend that educators could grapple with this issue if we create parameters of investigation. General education teachers should contribute to the resolution of this inquiry, not just information technology personnel.
Warlick outlines four basic concepts in attempting to address the tension between ethics and contemporary literacy:
• Respect for intellectual property (copyright, etc.)
• Respect for intellectual integrity (respect truth)
• Respect for each other (cause no harm)
• Respect for the information infrastructure
Each one of these concepts deserves much thought and an adequate response, which I will leave a few of these to my colleagues. For my purposes, I would like to address the third area of focus: respect for each other.
The most prominent classroom rule in middle and high schools across the country is probably a simple, although often tested, one: respect each other. We ask students to respect each other’s space, feelings, beliefs, etc., and we usually teach students some of the skills that are necessary in honoring this classroom rule. In addition, we often reward students that practice these skills and punish those who exercise inappropriate conduct. Should we not do the same thing in cyberspace?
On the Internet, blogs, wikis, and messages from Facebook and MySpace each provide students a plethora of opportunities to attack other students, and with this type of freedom, I think students should be educated on proper virtual behavior. Perhaps, teachers could set up class blogs or wikis in order to teach proper virtual etiquette. Programs like Enemybook (here’s an NPR interview with the creator of the Facebook paraody) will probably expand over time, but if we teach students how to respond to such programs, they will hopefully fizzle out.
What about the other concepts? What do these mean to you? What has been left out?
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1 comment:
Kevin,
This sounds like an essential concern that we should all address as individuals and even more as future educators. The purpose of education is to teach people how to become functional and literate in society. Nowadays with technology becoming such a big part of our society, I think that similar rules/guidelines, which are practiced in person, should be carried into the technological realm as well. I’ve always enjoyed ethics discussions in the classroom as a student because you can relate the issues with your person lives, I can say with certainty that our students would enjoy these discussions well. Two thumbs up from me for David Warlicks blog posting!
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